around us underwater with speed, grace, and
pinpoint precision.
Now, as we followed the path across the lava
rocks, I noticed that everything was still here
but with a difference: Everything was dead.
Carcasses were everywhere-sea lions,
iguanas, birds-rotting where they fell. Punta
Espinosa's resident population of sea lions had
been reduced from several score to ... well, it
was impossible to be certain, but in two hours
ashore we saw ten, all adults.
Only the little lava lizards, perched trium
phantly atop sea lion corpses, and the brilliant
red Sally Lightfoot crabs seemed to be thriving.
"And the hawks," Jonathan added. "Galapa
gos hawks are scavengers, and some of them
are so fat they can hardly fly."
Underwater the effects of El Ninio were
more subtle but still visible to a trained eye.
"A lot of the filter feeders are gone," Jerry said.
"The tube worms, the barnacles, the clams.
All the tiny plankton they feed on die off in
the warm water. And you'll see patches of
bleached coral, where the coral animals have
been killed by the hot water and increased
ultraviolet sunlight. But I think they'll come
back; I can already see some colonization
taking place."
I knew that the sea lions would probably
bounce back quickly too, though not by any
leap of adaptation. They were simply lucky.
Their primary predators, sharks, had been
hunted in large numbers.
LEGALLY, FISHING ANYWHERE in the
Galipagos is restricted to the islands'
roughly 600 artesanalfishermen
that is, fishermen who fish the old
fashioned way. But Rodrigo Bustamante, the
bearded young man who heads the marine
program at the Charles Darwin Research Sta
tion, said the laws and restrictions are of little
use when there is no money to enforce them.
There was evidence, he said, that Costa Rican
boats were active well within the boundaries
of the marine reserve.
"Still," he said, "things are better. At least the
conservationists and the fishermen are talk
ing. When I came here in '94, the fishermen
chased us with machetes and took us hostage."
On Sunday, May 31, I witnessed a healthy
demonstration of the ongoing dialogue. Our
boat and others returned to port so the crew
could vote in national elections. Voting is
mandatory in Ecuador, and a citizen who
neglects to vote risks losing legal privileges,
like the ability to open a bank account or
borrow money.
Election day was a fiesta in Puerto Ayora.
Placards and banners flew from buildings and
light poles; food vendors hawked spareribs
and sherbet and fried plantains; children
threw darts at balloons in hopes of winning
toys. And, of course, cynics prowled the
streets. A man known to one and all only as
Empanada (the word means a kind of meat
filled turnover; an equivalent American nick
name would be Hot Dog) confided in me that
"the lesser man will win because he is playing
to people's ignorance. He offers empty
dreams, but he is giving every voter a bag of
rice, and they all want to believe him."
Addressing a different level of belief, a local
dive master, Mathias Espinosa, surveyed the
crowd and remarked, "There are different
religions here, and among them there is not a
single soul who believes in evolution or natu
ral selection or any of the things that make the
Galkpagos famous."
The issues at stake in the election that day
were important to Galapagos Province
fishing rights, fishing limits, allocation of
revenues-but among voters generally there
was a sense of ennui because of what is known
as a secreto a voces (an open secret): pervasive,
epidemic, and intractable official corruption.
I had heard from several sources-park
guides, hoteliers, and boat captains, all of
whom feared retribution if their names were
mentioned-that some of the same military
officers charged with upholding the laws
were backroom partners in illegal fishing
operations.
"Boats fish everywhere," one guide told me.
"They pay no attention to boundaries. They
take everything, legal or not. We see them,
we denounce them, we even videotape them.
And what happens? We are called criminals
for ... I'm serious ... defaming them! If the
videotape is ever shown in court, whoops!
so sorry-it's blank."
I called Rebecca Winchester, an official of
the United States Information Agency based
in Quito, to ask how serious she thought the
corruption was. "It exists," she said, "but it's
not as important as the two basic issues-
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC, APRIL 1999